9 Church Street, Stratford-upon Avon (01789 425 522). Meal for two, including wine and service: £100

Stratford-upon-Avon is, like Hollywood, an industry town. In this case the industry is Shakespeare, described to me politely by one resident as being akin to "a large spreading oak tree in the shade of which little else may prosper". There are pros and cons to this depending upon who you are. For the town there is the tourist economy; for the restless eater, there is the deadening effect of a mass clientele that encourages restaurants into a mindset best categorised as "don't scare the horses". It is best represented by two hope-killing words: "lite bites". Stratford is full of menus pimping lite bites. You know what those words mean: not too much; just a little something; stuff on sticks; things slammed between bread. Deep-fried, wrapped-up objects with saucers full of sugar-burdened chilli dips.

Still, with a night there at my disposal, and an eagerness to chalk up one of my famed out-of-London reviews, plus a conviction that in modern Britain it must now be possible to eat well anywhere, I hunt on. I study websites where even the e-Menus look laminated and wipe clean. Eventually I find No 9 Church Street. The chef, Wayne Thomson, lists experience (though not how much) working with chefs like Bruno Loubet, Anthony Demetre and Alain Ducasse; the menu has outbreaks of wild garlic, and the kind of classic sauces that make people who enjoy perving over the pages of Larousse Gastronomique nod solemnly. It seems to be trying to do something.

And indeed it is. There is ambition. The temptation, for a warm, sensitive soul like me, constantly told he has a responsibility to cheerlead, is to overplay all this; to turn the merely OK into some undiscovered gem. Or to put it another way, a review which says: "I went to Stratford, I had dinner and it was, y'know, fine. Anyway, going anywhere nice on your holidays?' seems a little strained. Then again as a mark of where we really are in this country, perhaps it is useful: Stratford-upon-Avon is a wealthy town with a vibrant tourist economy. It is literally cultured.

And yet, even here, even after all my detective work, it's tough to get beyond the blunt, one-size-fits-all waffle of "fine".

No 9 Church Street is fine. Downstairs they have a tiny lounge area, for the taking of drinks and the reading of menus, just like grown-up places do. Upstairs is a small dining room where they play Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" at you. (If that never happens to me ever again, life will have taken a turn for the better.) There are good things, but they seem to happen slightly randomly.

An overtly English starter of hot smoked trout fillet with a wild garlic mayonnaise, all simple, clean, hedgerow flavours, sits uneasily alongside another of squid stuffed with salt cod and chorizo in a pungent paprika-boosted sauce basquaise. A dish of pigeon breast has a dry crust.

A main course of a fish mixed grill produces fillets that are accurately cooked, in that the proteins have set, but little indication that they have been near a searing flame. It is all as delicate as a lace doily. The sauce maltaise becomes less accompaniment than a vital player.

A veal dish has some fatless (and therefore slightly flavourless) loin alongside a few cubed bits of meat, just braised enough to break apart under a blanquette sauce in a pastry shell. Absolutely nothing is especially wrong with any of this; it all gets eaten up. But nor is anything especially right. It feels like the product of a chef who knows how to do some very smart, classical things, but who hasn't quite worked out exactly what he wants to be or do, or what the market will cope with.

Dessert has cheering moments of whimsy: little cubes of crème pâtissière, breaded and deep fried, which lend sweet to the sour of rhubarb; there is toffee popcorn alongside a chocolate-peanut butter confection. We drink a good solid Côtes du Rhône and realise we have managed a bill just shy of the ton for two. Service is charming and unobtrusive. Dinner has been taken. Nobody has died. I would love to be more enthusiastic, really I would. But for now that's the best I can do.

Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk. Follow Jay on Twitter @jayrayner1